We'll Say We Never Knew It
by islandofhopex
Summary: When Jade first met Cat, she didn't expect to see her again, nor did she expect things to end like this. Rated for kissing, swearing, and mentions of suicide. Includes Cat/Jade with mild Beck/Jade.


It's fitting that they first meet in the doctor's office.

Cat's mother is stuffing an ADHD pamphlet into a mess of a bag, but Cat is smiling all the same because the secretary is smiling at her, and she hasn't yet realized how patronizing it all is.

Jade, bored and weary already, is fingering the different magazines on the table. She wants to laugh at how dumb they all look, but laughing in a place like this didn't end well the last time she did it.

Cat walks up to her and asks what _her _problem is, and Jade responds only because the faux redhead's innocently curious tone intrigues her.

Jade rattles off her diagnoses without even a hint of shame because if there's one thing she won't let them take away from her, it's her pride. She doesn't bother hiding the scars on her arms as she shakes Cat's hand. Cat's mouth drops open in horror, but she doesn't walk away, and that, Jade later tells herself, is the only reason why she was disappointed to part with the girl.

* * *

Jade laughs when she sees how many medical bills are overflowing on Cat's kitchen table.

Cat wrinkles her nose in confusion. "What's funny? There are ones for me, ones for Josh who eats glue even though he's in sixth grade now, and ones for Max who has trisomy of—"

"The twenty-first chromosome," Jade finishes, sighing in exasperation. "You told me. I was just imagining what the kids at school would say if they knew that happy-go-lucky Cat Valentine has more issues than screw-the-world Jade West."

"You told me that's because your dad can't afford to send you to the doctor more," Cat says with that same innocent tone that Jade loves to hate.

It's not Cat's fault that Jade's father scarred her mother until finally she packed her bags and left. She didn't even look back at the baby who learned too soon that you came into the world alone and left the same way. Her dad's money never quite bounced back. Jade thinks she hates him sometimes, but she never says it because if she did, she knows he might tell her therapist she's unstable _again_.

Jade only talks to Cat about it late at night, when it's too dark for Jade to feel ashamed of her tears.

* * *

Cat goes to Hollywood Arts a year before Jade does.

Cat loves it because when she's there, she forgets herself. No one knows her as the freak with the ample medical history, nor as the sister of the "retard," as they so heartlessly put it at her last school. All her classmates see is a happy, talented, and sometimes a bit slow girl, and when she's there, she feels like that's all there is to her.

Jade wants to go as soon as she hears about it, but it takes her a long time to convince the father who barely hears her to sign her up, and even longer for the school to get the scholarship crap sorted out.

Jade adopts the same friends as Cat, mostly because she doesn't care to make her own. It doesn't take long for her to fall for the attractive Beck Oliver, and before long, she has her first boyfriend.

Cat seems even more nosy than usual when it comes to Beck and Jade. She constantly asks Jade if they're in love, and Jade never hesitates to say no. She likes Beck because he's simple and decent, but that's all there is to him. She knows by the way he never hesitates to look at other girls that the feeling is mutual.

* * *

"I think that was the last straw."

"Hmm?"

Cat looks up from the set she was supposed to be painting. She expects to see a teary-eyed Jade, like she does every other time Beck and Jade break up, but her eyes aren't even red.

"Beck and I," Jade says unnecessarily. "He… well, he found that note I wrote last year."

Jade clearly means something special by this, but Cat, her eyes half glazed over, doesn't seem to be catching on.

"The suicide note!" Jade practically yells, shaking Cat back to the present.

"Oh my god, that's so awful! And you're not getting back together this time?" Cat asks, but Jade just sits next to her on the stage, not even bothering to glare at her.

"I don't want to," Jade admits. "I'm so fucking sick of it, trying to keep things simple between us. It's not working anymore."

Cat wraps her arm around her friend as support, but Jade can tell something's off.

"What's wrong? You're even more distractible than usual," Jade teases, but there's real worry in her eyes.

When Cat won't even make eye contact, Jade tries another approach. "Cry."

"Cry?" Cat repeats, putting down her dried out paintbrush.

"You heard me," Jade says. "I saw your face at Max's funeral. You didn't even shed a tear."

Cat waits a moment before responding, but Jade's just glad to hear her respond at all. "Well, it wouldn't do any good, would it? And it's not like I'm never going to see him again…"

Cat says this with such simple certainty that Jade is downright impressed. "You know, you're much braver than people give you credit for," she confesses, and Cat's eyes go wide at this rare compliment.

"I'm not as brave as you," Cat says sheepishly. "I still run out of the room whenever you put on a horror film."

"There are different kinds of bravery," Jade responds with a shrug.

On impulse, Jade reaches her hand out to rest on Cat's. She doesn't mean to leave it there. She means to pull it back and end this moment of raw empathy, ruin it before Cat can. But one look in her eyes and Jade can't remember why she wanted to stop this.

It's Jade who takes the first leap of bravery—Jade who breaks the boundaries and leans into Cat. But even more shocking is the way Cat pulls away.

"No!" Cat shrieks, standing up so fast that the forgotten paintbrush clanks to the floor. Jade is caught completely off guard. She hadn't exactly expected Cat to be completely willing, but she certainly hadn't expected Cat to turn away altogether.

"I don't—I don't want a reason to… I don't want a reason to change my mind," Cat says, and it looks like the words alone pain her.

"Cat, I really don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Jade says with as little irritation in her tone as possible, but it's hard to suppress. Like always, Cat doesn't even seem offended.

"I'm—I'm sorry," Cat says, backing out of the room. Jade has never seen her look so sad. Cat has gotten upset countless times before, but it's a different kind of upset this time—a deeper, more subdued kind; Cat is gone before Jade even has a chance to call her out on it.

* * *

"Catherine Valentine was a remarkable young lady," the man in the dark suit recites, and Jade cringes at the past tense alone. "She was a kind soul, and a beloved friend to many.

"One cannot begin to understand why she made the decision that she did, but to honor her, we must try."

By the end of the ceremony, Jade desperately wants to punch this strange man who dares try to put words to an inexplicable pain, but she's smart enough to know that it would do no good. There's nothing anyone can do.

The friends Cat made for her are looking at her like they understand what she's going through, but they _don't_. They had always known about Cat's psychological problems, but they'd never known about how deeply they'd run. They had met Cat's twisted family before, but they'd never actually _known_ them personally. They had loved Cat with all their hearts, but they'd never been _in_ love with her, not like Jade had been and refused to admit. It's a cliché end, but Jade knows it's too late to rewrite it.


End file.
